Resource Guide Introduction

Role and Responsibility of Faculty

Faculty play a significant role in helping the college meet its legal mandates of non-discrimination and supporting students with disabilities through access to and equal participation in all of the college’s courses, programs, services, and activities. Faculty members are charged with ensuring that students with disabilities in their classrooms have equitable access to the educational experience (See Part 3 of this Guide – Providing Effective Accommodations)

When approached by a student with a disability, faculty should:

Be familiar with this guide and attend professional growth activities related to services for students with disabilities whenever possible.

Meet with the student to review their accommodation requests and to determine if the student uses Disability Support Services (DSS).

Address any disability verification questions or accommodation concerns to the DSS staff. The student is not obligated to disclose their disability diagnosis with their instructors. It is their choice to disclose or not.

Provide any materials such as exams or tests in a timely fashion.

Provide the DSS authorized accommodations in the specified time and in the manner agreed upon.

The best and most effective way to request student accommodations is through Disability Support Services (DSS). However, students can, and occasionally do, request accommodations directly from the instructor. In such cases, it is highly recommended that the instructor contact the DSS office for advice prior to providing any accommodations.

The Accommodation Authorization Process

Students with disabilities initially meet with their Disability Support Services (DSS) Counselor or Learning Disabilities (LD) Specialist to verify their eligibility to receive services and to establish the student’s Academic Accommodation Plan (AAP). The AAP lists the appropriate classroom or general accommodations the student will need to have access to and equally participate in the college’s courses, programs, services, and/or activities.

Accommodations are not automatically authorized and appropriate every quarter for every enrolled course. (For instance, given a student’s specific educational limitations, test accommodations may be appropriate for a Math course but not appropriate for an English course.) Classroom accommodations, in particular, must be authorized or reauthorized by the student’s DSS Counselor or LD Specialist each quarter for each course.

Recommended Course Syllabus Statement

It is important that students with disabilities arrange all their accommodations through DSS and get authorization each quarter as necessary. To this end, Disability Support Services recommends that all faculty include the following statement on all course syllabi:

“Students who have been found to be eligible for accommodations by Disability Support Services (DSS), please follow up to ensure that your accommodations have been authorized for the current quarter. If you are not registered with DSS and need accommodations, please go to the DSS office in the Registration & Student Services Building (RSS) - Room 141 for information on eligibility and how to receive support services. You can also go online to http://www.deanza.edu/dss for additional information.”